have played into it? That she’d wanted to get the guy she liked and put her friend in her place at the same time? The next day of course, my mom was in a gloom, walked on the beach alone, called Bess, etc.
I skipped Mom’s OCD footnotes for this passage and moved on to July and August. It was clear Mom had some better weeks than others. Sometimes she sounded like any shy, insecure teenager. She went to Bess’s house for sleepovers. Nate took both of them sailing. There were beach bonfires (I guess I’d been wrong about that one), long days sunbathing slathered in baby oil instead of sunscreen. Other weeks Mom holed up in her room, listening to The Cure and the Cowboy Junkies set to repeat on her new CD player. She starved, weighed, and counted a lot during these periods.
It was surprising to me how little she mentioned Dad or any of her own crushes. Her diary devoted way more time to Cat’s manipulations of Jimmy, Cat’s jealousy when Bess would talk to him at a party, and Cat’s opinions of who at Stone Cove High was and wasn’t worth their time. Cat, at seventeen, seemed to me to have been a classic mean girl,and I didn’t see that she’d changed all that much since. I wondered if Mom got sick of it or if eventually Cat had turned against her. Something had broken up their friendship long before I was born.
SCHOOL WAS CREAKILY GETTING back to a modified normal. We had assemblies in the cafeteria and gym in the playground. Several times a day, the power flickered off and then whirred back on at half strength, fueled by loud generators. To me, the changes made little difference, but then I wasn’t living in the gym and taking showers in the girls’ locker room. I had already given Mom the excuse of going to the library after school, so I decided I would actually do that. In town, I noticed the village green had been cleared of fallen branches, but the grass was still burnt yellow. I wondered if it would grow back on its own or if they would have to re-sod the whole thing in the spring. It looked painful, if plants could experience pain.
At the library, the power was back on and the Internet was up. That meant I could skip the microfiche. It also meant way more people were using the library. I signed my name to the waiting list for a computer terminal, and went out to sit on the front steps and wait.
Into the Wild
was in my bag and I was only a few pages in when I looked up to see Charlie approaching the entrance. I had planned to be cool the next time I saw him, but I couldn’t stop my grin.
“Hi,” I said, standing quickly. “How are you?”
“Good.” He stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked up at me, warily I thought.
“The Internet is working again. I was going to look upsome news articles about the investigation. Greg Jurovic told me Bess’s things were discovered at the lighthouse by some surfers. If we can figure out who it was, maybe we can ask them about it.” As soon as I said “we” I regretted it. Charlie had an expression on his face that indicated he was not in the mood to be a “joiner” after all. What had I done? I wondered. We both grew uncomfortable as a long silent moment lingered between us.
“Cool,” he said. “I’m actually here to help Mary Ellen with the library’s computer archiving setup. They want to make sure they have everything backed up properly, since the power keeps going out.”
Cool? That didn’t even sound like Charlie. Had he had a lobotomy since I’d last seen him?
“Very cool,” I said tonelessly. “You’d better not keep Mary Ellen waiting then.” I gave him a frosty stare and waited for him to go. It was the exact opposite of what I wanted. For an instant, I felt as crazy as my seventeen-year-old mother.
“Yeah,” he said. His voice was so soft I could barely hear him. “I should go.” He walked slowly up the steps, not turning back. I felt like an idiot. I waited for as long as I thought it would take him to get to the
I skipped Mom’s OCD footnotes for this passage and moved on to July and August. It was clear Mom had some better weeks than others. Sometimes she sounded like any shy, insecure teenager. She went to Bess’s house for sleepovers. Nate took both of them sailing. There were beach bonfires (I guess I’d been wrong about that one), long days sunbathing slathered in baby oil instead of sunscreen. Other weeks Mom holed up in her room, listening to The Cure and the Cowboy Junkies set to repeat on her new CD player. She starved, weighed, and counted a lot during these periods.
It was surprising to me how little she mentioned Dad or any of her own crushes. Her diary devoted way more time to Cat’s manipulations of Jimmy, Cat’s jealousy when Bess would talk to him at a party, and Cat’s opinions of who at Stone Cove High was and wasn’t worth their time. Cat, at seventeen, seemed to me to have been a classic mean girl,and I didn’t see that she’d changed all that much since. I wondered if Mom got sick of it or if eventually Cat had turned against her. Something had broken up their friendship long before I was born.
SCHOOL WAS CREAKILY GETTING back to a modified normal. We had assemblies in the cafeteria and gym in the playground. Several times a day, the power flickered off and then whirred back on at half strength, fueled by loud generators. To me, the changes made little difference, but then I wasn’t living in the gym and taking showers in the girls’ locker room. I had already given Mom the excuse of going to the library after school, so I decided I would actually do that. In town, I noticed the village green had been cleared of fallen branches, but the grass was still burnt yellow. I wondered if it would grow back on its own or if they would have to re-sod the whole thing in the spring. It looked painful, if plants could experience pain.
At the library, the power was back on and the Internet was up. That meant I could skip the microfiche. It also meant way more people were using the library. I signed my name to the waiting list for a computer terminal, and went out to sit on the front steps and wait.
Into the Wild
was in my bag and I was only a few pages in when I looked up to see Charlie approaching the entrance. I had planned to be cool the next time I saw him, but I couldn’t stop my grin.
“Hi,” I said, standing quickly. “How are you?”
“Good.” He stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked up at me, warily I thought.
“The Internet is working again. I was going to look upsome news articles about the investigation. Greg Jurovic told me Bess’s things were discovered at the lighthouse by some surfers. If we can figure out who it was, maybe we can ask them about it.” As soon as I said “we” I regretted it. Charlie had an expression on his face that indicated he was not in the mood to be a “joiner” after all. What had I done? I wondered. We both grew uncomfortable as a long silent moment lingered between us.
“Cool,” he said. “I’m actually here to help Mary Ellen with the library’s computer archiving setup. They want to make sure they have everything backed up properly, since the power keeps going out.”
Cool? That didn’t even sound like Charlie. Had he had a lobotomy since I’d last seen him?
“Very cool,” I said tonelessly. “You’d better not keep Mary Ellen waiting then.” I gave him a frosty stare and waited for him to go. It was the exact opposite of what I wanted. For an instant, I felt as crazy as my seventeen-year-old mother.
“Yeah,” he said. His voice was so soft I could barely hear him. “I should go.” He walked slowly up the steps, not turning back. I felt like an idiot. I waited for as long as I thought it would take him to get to the
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